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Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The

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Speaker 1: most profound moments of American history. Of American political history, Secession, Watergate,

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Speaker 1: Tea pot Dome, the resignation of Nixon, the retirement of

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Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson, all the rest share one commonality. These stories

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Speaker 1: have each taken on a momentum of their own. They

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Speaker 1: have each reached a tipping point when, whether quickly or imperceptibly,

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Speaker 1: the other option began to disappear. The momentum in the

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Speaker 1: Biden reelection story changed yesterday, and the tipping point may

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Speaker 1: have been reached. Internal Democratic Party polling in the swing

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Speaker 1: states that you and I were never supposed to see

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Speaker 1: has leaked, and suddenly there are not six swing states

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Speaker 1: that will decide whether America lives or dies, but twelve,

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Speaker 1: and the President is slipping in all twelve of them,

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Speaker 1: in some catastrophically. The President himself made more confused remarks

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Speaker 1: at a fundraiser last night in which it seemed as

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Speaker 1: if his sense of time had been lost, and Nancy Pelosi,

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Speaker 1: who is if Joe Biden is not the true leader

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Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party, made comments about the president about

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Speaker 1: the president's acuity, about whether or not the president should

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Speaker 1: undergo some kind of examination of that acuity that were

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Speaker 1: so unexpected that a spokesperson later tried to walk them

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Speaker 1: back with little success. To quote my friend of more

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Speaker 1: than half a century from when I was the editor

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Speaker 1: in chief and he was my new ace news reporter

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Speaker 1: on our high school newspaper, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer,

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Speaker 1: it does feel like an energy shift in the force.

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Speaker 1: I am suggesting that the events of the last twenty

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Speaker 1: four hours may have made Joe Biden's withdrawal from the

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Speaker 1: ticket inevitable or virtually so, and that this in turn

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Speaker 1: makes tangible the second half of what might happen next.

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Speaker 1: I'll review these events presently, but I want briefly to

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Speaker 1: jump to that speculative finish line about the second half

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Speaker 1: of what happens next and ask you if this seemingly

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Speaker 1: dire inconceivable outcome is actually, in fact far better than

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Speaker 1: it seems. If the President were to resolve himself to

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Speaker 1: the idea that he has to retire from the ticket,

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Speaker 1: it is not a great leap from that point to

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Speaker 1: believe he would also see the extraordinary value of attaching

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Speaker 1: the title of incumbent to Kamala Harris's name of retiring

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Speaker 1: from the presidency and letting her become. As Lincoln said,

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Speaker 1: clothed in immense power well before the election, it is

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Speaker 1: arguable that if you feel as others feel, as perhaps

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Speaker 1: President Biden already feels or will feel, that he will

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Speaker 1: not be up to discharging the office six months and

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Speaker 1: eighteen days from now, at the beginning of the next term.

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Speaker 1: If that's true, he's probably also not up to discharging

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Speaker 1: the office right now. His retirement would not, I think,

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Speaker 1: be seen as a defeat, nor as the result of

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Speaker 1: unseemly desperate pressure. It would be an ennobling act that

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Speaker 1: would resonate in this country among those of his supporters

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Speaker 1: who are wavering, and especially among independents. He would become,

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Speaker 1: and would remain for as long as the nation lasts,

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Speaker 1: the man who gave up the most powerful position in

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Speaker 1: the world, the man who beat Trump, doing exactly what

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Speaker 1: Trump refused to do, voluntarily surrendering the presidency, and not

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Speaker 1: even when the law and the weight of the nation's

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Speaker 1: history said he had to, but much much earlier to

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Speaker 1: be a president who leaves the office he has spent

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Speaker 1: his life trying to reach solely to ensure that America

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Speaker 1: beats Trump again. Would enshrine Joe Biden, I believe, among

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Speaker 1: the immortal presidents, And it would instantaneously transform the Democratic

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Speaker 1: campaign from these exhausting months of breath held and fingers

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Speaker 1: crossed and even tears for what Joe Biden has become

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Speaker 1: into something historic and selfless and admirable. It would be

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Speaker 1: the true sacrifice of true public servants. And then there

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Speaker 1: is the practical consideration. Suddenly, the only candidate left with

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Speaker 1: an age problem would be Trump, The only candidate with

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Speaker 1: an uncertain grip on reality would be Trump. The only

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Speaker 1: candidate to be called feeble or gaff prone or lost

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Speaker 1: would be Trump. In February of this year, an ABC

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Speaker 1: News poll showed that sixty percent of voters thought they

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Speaker 1: were both too old to be president. On Whom does

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Speaker 1: that sentiment fully fall? On? Whom does that media coverage

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Speaker 1: fully fall If it is not Trump versus Biden, but

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Speaker 1: Trump versus Harris, Trump versus a Democratic opponent who is

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Speaker 1: nineteen years younger than he is. If Kamala Harris became

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Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee today, how much older would Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: seem tomorrow? If as I am suggesting here the even

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Speaker 1: fuller change is made and Biden retires not just from

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Speaker 1: the ticket, but also from the office. Congratulations, Madam President,

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Speaker 1: you are the first woman president of the United States,

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Speaker 1: the first woman of color to hold the office, the

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Speaker 1: incumbent first woman president of the United States, asking the

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Speaker 1: voters to validate her with a full term of office,

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Speaker 1: and doing so when a principal plank of the Democratic

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Speaker 1: campaign has been the Republican's assault on the rights of

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Speaker 1: every woman in this country, consider that. Well, I have

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Speaker 1: not seen poling on this, but I would be fascinated

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Speaker 1: to learn what voters believe. The top three issues in

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Speaker 1: or about the Democratic campaign happened to be the protection

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Speaker 1: of the democracy from Trump certainly, abortion and other women's

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Speaker 1: rights certainly, but by now among the top three must

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Speaker 1: be the age and health of Joe Biden. And however

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Speaker 1: we got here, who's ever fault that is saying it

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Speaker 1: is not true is not going to get anything done.

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Speaker 1: It pains me to phrase this in this manner because

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Speaker 1: it will be no secret to you you listen to

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Speaker 1: these that I love this man. But to remove his age,

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Speaker 1: to remove his debate performance, to remove his teleprompter from

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Speaker 1: the campaign to remove the unspoken, unresolvable fear of what

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Speaker 1: problem might befall him next is to create an extraordinary

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Speaker 1: space in the minds of the voters. The evil, the

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Speaker 1: threat that is Donald Trump is currently being paired with

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Speaker 1: the risk that Joe Biden's age is or seems to

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Speaker 1: be suddenly in the minds of the voters, there would

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Speaker 1: be nothing to mitigate Trump's poison. And who could elevate

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Speaker 1: women's rights more than the first woman president of the

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Speaker 1: United States or even the first woman likely to be

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Speaker 1: president of the United States. And what else from the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party agenda could rise to the front of the

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Speaker 1: voter's minds healthcare, economic growth? What will be seen clearly

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Speaker 1: when nothing overshadows the campaign. As I said, each watershed

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Speaker 1: moment of our history has taken on a momentum of

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Speaker 1: its own and had its final turning point. And I

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Speaker 1: think yesterday we reached that space in this extraordinary story.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's what Nancy Pelosi intended. I do

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Speaker 1: think it is what she accomplished. Both candidates owe whatever

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Speaker 1: test you want to put them to in terms of

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Speaker 1: their mental acuity and their health, both of them, she

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Speaker 1: said yesterday on MSNBC. She has said this before about Trump,

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Speaker 1: she has now said it about Joe Biden. That she

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Speaker 1: has said it about Biden cannot be ignored. Its impact

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Speaker 1: cannot be ignored. And she said this, I think it's

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Speaker 1: a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or

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Speaker 1: is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's

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Speaker 1: completely legitimate of both candidates. Wait, I think it's a

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Speaker 1: legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is

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Speaker 1: this a condition? If there or anything Nancy Pelosi could

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Speaker 1: have said about Joe Biden that would do less to

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Speaker 1: contain the issue of his acuity, I am hard pressed

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Speaker 1: to guess what it could have been. And there was

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Speaker 1: a third quote Pelosi said, assessments of what, if anything,

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Speaker 1: to do now have been conflicting. Quote. Some are like, well,

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Speaker 1: how can we subject the process to what might be possible?

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Speaker 1: Others are Joe is our guy, we love him, we

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Speaker 1: trust him. He has vision, knowledge, judgment, integrity. I trust

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Speaker 1: his judgment. Later in the day, the Pelosi spokesperson was

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Speaker 1: asked to clarify her remarks. Quote Speaker Pelosi has full

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Speaker 1: confidence in President Biden and looks forward to attending his

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Speaker 1: inauguration on January twentieth twenty twenty five. That statement was

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Speaker 1: widely described yesterday is the cleaning up of Pelosi's remarks. Really,

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Speaker 1: that was the cleanup. She suggests the president take a

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Speaker 1: mental test and says it is legitimate to ask if

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Speaker 1: he's had an event or he has a condition. And

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Speaker 1: by the way, neither of those is a good thing.

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Speaker 1: She says, all of those things, and the cleanup is

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Speaker 1: one generic sentence consisting of seventeen words and jumping all

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Speaker 1: the way through all the crises of the next few

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Speaker 1: months to the inaugural Forgive me. If you think you

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Speaker 1: have harmed Joe Biden and you need to clean up

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Speaker 1: your remarks, you at least reference what the hell you said.

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Speaker 1: If you don't really want to clean up your remarks

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Speaker 1: and you are somehow speaking in code to Joe Biden,

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Speaker 1: you say what her spokesperson said. And there were remarks

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Speaker 1: by the president last night that required immediate cleanup as well.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't very smart. I decided to travel around the

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Speaker 1: world shortly before the debate, he said at a fundraiser

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Speaker 1: in Virginia. He then described his arduous travel through fifteen

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Speaker 1: time zone changes for the G seven and D day

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Speaker 1: and how it affected him at the debate, quoting I

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Speaker 1: didn't listen to my staff, and then I came home

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Speaker 1: and nearly fell asleep on stage. What the debate was

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Speaker 1: June twenty seventh. He returned from his travels on June sixteenth,

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Speaker 1: and there was the Texas Congressman Lloyd Dogget, who called

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Speaker 1: in no uncertain terms for Biden to step aside. Dogget

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Speaker 1: said his constituents were ten to one in favor of that.

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Speaker 1: He said that in the debate, instead of reassuring voters,

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Speaker 1: the president failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and

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Speaker 1: exposed Trump's men lies. This is one of the underrated

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Speaker 1: disasters of last Thursday night. Nearly a week later, I

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Speaker 1: find myself with this one image. It looked as if

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden could not defend himself, that Trump was hitting

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Speaker 1: him again and again. And then there are the internal

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Speaker 1: Progressive polls that were leaked to Puck News yesterday about

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Speaker 1: the damage to Biden's support in the swing states after

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Speaker 1: the debate, and more importantly, the reality that there are

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Speaker 1: now as many as six new swing states that were

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Speaker 1: solidly in Biden's camp a week ago. Today, the pollster

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Speaker 1: is open Labs, the progressive nonprofit that does not survey

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Speaker 1: for public consumption but instead for a variety of democratic organizations.

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Speaker 1: Open Labs is linked directly to Future Forward, which is

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Speaker 1: a Biden campaign superpaw. Their numbers are, to say, the

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Speaker 1: least disturbing. New Hampshire is now Trump by three. Virginia

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Speaker 1: in the wake of the debate is Trump by one

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Speaker 1: and a half. Their poll shows that President now has

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Speaker 1: leads of half a point or less in New Mexico,

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Speaker 1: in Maine, in Minnesota, shose that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona,

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Speaker 1: North Carolina, Georgia, and the Nebraska second District are all

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Speaker 1: Trump by four or more at its seven in Michigan

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Speaker 1: and in Pennsylvania. The poll in the three days after

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Speaker 1: the debate showing Biden's support dropping by roughly two percentage

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Speaker 1: points in all twelve of these states in a moment,

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Speaker 1: and dropping by two percentage points in Colorado in Minnesota,

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Speaker 1: and that if he cannot recover all of that lost

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Speaker 1: because of the debate, if this is the way it's

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Speaker 1: going to be, and it doesn't get any worse or

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Speaker 1: better from here on in, the Democrats are looking at

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Speaker 1: a loss by at least one hundred votes in the

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Speaker 1: electoral College, and they also had in Open Labs and

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Speaker 1: equally disturbing deep interior number. In May, one quarter of

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden's twenty twenty voters surveyed told Open Labs that

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Speaker 1: he should drop out. Now the company reports the number

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Speaker 1: has ballooned to forty percent. It also surveyed potential substitute

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Speaker 1: candidates in those swing states, the vice president, Governors Newsom

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Speaker 1: and Whitmer, secretary of boodhaj Jedge. They all pull better

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Speaker 1: than Joe Biden does against Trump, and they pull better

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Speaker 1: than Biden in all of the swing states. Buddha Jedge

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Speaker 1: would be at fifty percent or better in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin,

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Speaker 1: Nebraska too, and Pennsylvania. Fifty percent or better in Wisconsin,

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Speaker 1: Nebraska to Pennsylvania and Michigan. Newsome fifty percent or better

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Speaker 1: in Nebraska too. In Wisconsin, Harris at fifty in Wisconsin,

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Speaker 1: Biden under fifty. Everywhere. There was a less important national

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Speaker 1: poll Yesterday, You Go Yahoo, Eighty four percent of their

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Speaker 1: respondents thought Biden's debate grade was only poor to fare.

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Speaker 1: Sixty percent said Biden is not fit to serve a

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Speaker 1: second term. A month ago, the President led the UGOV

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Speaker 1: poll forty six to forty four. He now trails it

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Speaker 1: forty five to forty three. That is a four point collapse.

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Speaker 1: Since for all practical purposes, Thursday, there is also a

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Speaker 1: CNN poll. It says of all voters of all parties,

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Speaker 1: seventy five percent believe the Democrats would have a better

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Speaker 1: shot of retaining the White House if somebody other than

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden is the party nominee, and what might be

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Speaker 1: the last thrust of the dagger of history. The experts

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Speaker 1: at the Campaign Legal Center explained to the website The

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Speaker 1: American Prospect that if Biden does withdraw, then there's only

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Speaker 1: one way for the new nominee and the Democratic Party

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Speaker 1: to get full and immediate access to all the money

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Speaker 1: that has been raised by the Biden for President campaign committee,

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Speaker 1: and as of May thirty one, that was two hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty million dollars another thirty eight million since the debate,

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Speaker 1: there's probably much more than two hundred and fifty eight

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Speaker 1: million available or already booked an advertising time. The only

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Speaker 1: way it could seamlessly spend all that money on the

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Speaker 1: new candidate without restrictions and labyrinths and creative bookkeeping. The

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Speaker 1: only way the money could go to the new candidate

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Speaker 1: is if the new candidate is Vice President Harris. I believe,

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Speaker 1: for good or for ill, that this corner has been turned.

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Speaker 1: I am not citing sources, nor even quoting them in

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Speaker 1: my own mind. Off the record, I do not have

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Speaker 1: access to behind the scenes information or data. I have

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Speaker 1: only a lot of experience watching the stories of my

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Speaker 1: own lifetime unfold and covering many of them, and extensive

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Speaker 1: study of the timelines of American history going back to

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Speaker 1: our beginnings. I am deeply emotionally saddened by what I

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Speaker 1: think is now inevitable, and I find it remarkable. I

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Speaker 1: would have said none of this twenty four hours ago,

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Speaker 1: none of it, And yet now, because of the relatively

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Speaker 1: small changes, but the release of the information in the polling,

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Speaker 1: the things we did not know about, how bad the

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Speaker 1: damage was, it all rings true now, inevitably, inescapably, and

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Speaker 1: solemnly true. Now we know why the corrupt bastards on

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court put in that little time bomb that

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Speaker 1: not only couldn't you prosecute a president for official acts,

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Speaker 1: but you also could not prosecute him for unofficial acts

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Speaker 1: if the unofficial acts involve testimony or details related to

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Speaker 1: official acts. Trump's lawyers promptly used that argument to get

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Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg to postpone the sentencing in Trump's Stormy Daniels

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Speaker 1: election interference case from a week from tomorrow until September eighteenth.

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Speaker 1: Brag insists the Scotis ruling doesn't have a damn thing

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Speaker 1: to do with his case, but he has no problem

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Speaker 1: with the delay. Before trials started, Trump used the same

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Speaker 1: argument in hopes of moving the entire case to federal court.

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Speaker 1: A federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein, ruled against him, quoting the

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Speaker 1: evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal

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Speaker 1: item of the president, a cover up of an embarrassing event.

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Speaker 1: Hush money paid to an adult film star is not

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Speaker 1: related to a president's official acts. It does not reflect

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Speaker 1: in any way the color of the president's official duties.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, fella. I mean, if banging a porn

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Speaker 1: star isn't an official act, my name isn't Martha's Stormy Washington.

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Speaker 1: It is galling to consider just how many things will

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Speaker 1: change because the court didn't just put a thumb on

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Speaker 1: the scales of justice. It put the entirety of Clarence

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Speaker 1: Thomas's porn collection on them. On the other hand, there

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Speaker 1: is a silver lining here in the application to the

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Speaker 1: New York case. Trump could be sentenced to prison exactly

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Speaker 1: forty nine days before the election. Oh, Judge Mershan, give

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Speaker 1: him fifty days while Trump continues to evade justice and

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Speaker 1: reality and God and whatever. Not. So for Rudy Giuliani,

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Speaker 1: he has been formally disbarred, prohibited from practicing law in

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Speaker 1: New York State? Wait, is that what he was doing

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Speaker 1: practicing law? I'll be damn sure didn't look anything like that.

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Speaker 1: And if you need a laugh, a silver lining something

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Speaker 1: considered this back to the main story. If we really

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Speaker 1: have hit the point where the president has to retire

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Speaker 1: for health reasons, and Kamala Harris becomes the forty seventh

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Speaker 1: president of the United States soon or not until January,

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Speaker 1: think how much trump forty seven merchandise will have to

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Speaker 1: be burned in a giant pire somewhere. There will be

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Speaker 1: a July fourth Countdown podcast, and I am hoping there

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Speaker 1: will be enough quiet, just for a couple of days

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Speaker 1: that I can point to the take festival at both

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Speaker 1: extremes of the Biden situation, and god knows, I've been

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Speaker 1: at both extremes of the Biden situation in the last

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Speaker 1: forty eight hours that I can point at them and

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Speaker 1: bring you something for context, underscoring the efficiency with which

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Speaker 1: the media manages to bury its awful takes for all

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Speaker 1: time in baseball. July fourth is Lou Garrig Day, and

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Speaker 1: he is now uniformly viewed as the definition of courage

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Speaker 1: and tragedy. But when he got sick in nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: nine and in nineteen forty two, prominent sports writers penned

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Speaker 1: articles in prominent venues claiming A lou gereg was faking

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Speaker 1: his illness and b Lou Garrig had managed to infect

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Speaker 1: all of his teammates. The story of those amazing articles

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Speaker 1: in Why You've Never heard of Them? That's the plan

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Speaker 1: for tomorrow. We'll see if that's the podcast for tomorrow, regardless,

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Speaker 1: until the next one, I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon,

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Speaker 1: good night, and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Oldreman is

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts,